Chapter 6
1 When the disturbance made by the people outside the council had died down, Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, said to Achior in the presence of all the foreign contingents:
2 "Who are you, Achior and you mercenaries of Ephraim, to prophesy among us as you have done today and tell us not to make war against the people of Israel because their God will defend them? What god is there except Nebuchadnezzar? He will send his forces and destroy them from the face of the earth. Their God will not save them;
3 we the king's servants will destroy them as one man. They cannot resist the might of our cavalry.
4 We will overwhelm them; their mountains will be drunk with their blood, and their fields will be full of their dead. Not even their footprints will survive our attack; they will utterly perish. So says King Nebuchadnezzar, lord of the whole earth. For he has spoken; none of his words shall be in vain.
5 "As for you, Achior, you Ammonite mercenary, you have said these words in a moment of perversity; you shall not see my face again from this day until I take revenge on this race that came out of Egypt.
6 Then at my return the sword of my army and the spear of my servants shall pierce your sides, and you shall fall among their wounded.
7 Now my slaves are going to take you back into the hill country and put you in one of the towns beside the passes.
8 You will not die until you perish along with them.
9 If you really hope in your heart that they will not be taken, then do not look downcast! I have spoken, and none of my words shall fail to come true."
10 Then Holofernes ordered his slaves, who waited on him in his tent, to seize Achior and take him away to Bethulia and hand him over to the Israelites.
11 So the slaves took him and led him out of the camp into the plain, and from the plain they went up into the hill country and came to the springs below Bethulia.
12 When the men of the town saw them, they seized their weapons and ran out of the town to the top of the hill, and all the slingers kept them from coming up by throwing stones at them.
13 So having taken shelter below the hill, they bound Achior and left him lying at the foot of the hill, and returned to their master.
14 Then the Israelites came down from their town and found him; they untied him and brought him into Bethulia and placed him before the magistrates of their town,
15 who in those days were Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon, and Chabris son of Gothoniel, and Charmis son of Melchiel.
16 They called together all the elders of the town, and all their young men and women ran to the assembly. They set Achior in the midst of all their people, and Uzziah questioned him about what had happened.
17 He answered and told them what had taken place at the council of Holofernes, and all that he had said in the presence of the Assyrian leaders, and all that Holofernes had boasted he would do against the house of Israel.
18 Then the people fell down and worshiped God, and cried out:
19 "O Lord God of heaven, see their arrogance, and have pity on our people in their humiliation, and look kindly today on the faces of those who are consecrated to you."
20 Then they reassured Achior, and praised him highly.
21 Uzziah took him from the assembly to his own house and gave a banquet for the elders; and all that night they called on the God of Israel for help.
Chapter 7
1 The next day Holofernes ordered his whole army, and all the allies who had joined him, to break camp and move against Bethulia, and to seize the passes up into the hill country and make war on the Israelites.
2 So all their warriors marched off that day; their fighting forces numbered one hundred seventy thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry, not counting the baggage and the foot soldiers handling it, a very great multitude.
3 They encamped in the valley near Bethulia, beside the spring, and they spread out in breadth over Dothan as far as Balbaim and in length from Bethulia to Cyamon, which faces Esdraelon.
4 When the Israelites saw their vast numbers, they were greatly terrified and said to one another, "They will now strip clean the whole land; neither the high mountains nor the valleys nor the hills will bear their weight."
5 Yet they all seized their weapons, and when they had kindled fires on their towers, they remained on guard all that night.
6 On the second day Holofernes led out all his cavalry in full view of the Israelites in Bethulia.
7 He reconnoitered the approaches to their town, and visited the springs that supplied their water; he seized them and set guards of soldiers over them, and then returned to his army.
8 Then all the chieftains of the Edomites and all the leaders of the Moabites and the commanders of the coastland came to him and said,
9 "Listen to what we have to say, my lord, and your army will suffer no losses.
10 This people, the Israelites, do not rely on their spears but on the height of the mountains where they live, for it is not easy to reach the tops of their mountains.
11 Therefore, my lord, do not fight against them in regular formation, and not a man of your army will fall.
12 Remain in your camp, and keep all the men in your forces with you; let your servants take possession of the spring of water that flows from the foot of the mountain,
13 for this is where all the people of Bethulia get their water. So thirst will destroy them, and they will surrender their town. Meanwhile, we and our people will go up to the tops of the nearby mountains and camp there to keep watch to see that no one gets out of the town.
14 They and their wives and children will waste away with famine, and before the sword reaches them they will be strewn about in the streets where they live.
15 Thus you will pay them back with evil, because they rebelled and did not receive you peaceably."
16 These words pleased Holofernes and all his attendants, and he gave orders to do as they had said.
17 So the army of the Ammonites moved forward, together with five thousand Assyrians, and they encamped in the valley and seized the water supply and the springs of the Israelites.
18 And the Edomites and Ammonites went up and encamped in the hill country opposite Dothan; and they sent some of their men toward the south and the east, toward Egrebeh, which is near Chusi beside the Wadi Mochmur. The rest of the Assyrian army encamped in the plain, and covered the whole face of the land. Their tents and supply trains spread out in great number, and they formed a vast multitude.
Distress of the Israelites
19 The Israelites then cried out to the Lord their God, for their courage failed, because all their enemies had surrounded them, and there was no way of escape from them.
20 The whole Assyrian army, their infantry, chariots, and cavalry, surrounded them for thirty-four days, until all the water containers of every inhabitant of Bethulia were empty;
21 their cisterns were going dry, and on no day did they have enough water to drink, for their drinking water was rationed.
22 Their children were listless, and the women and young men fainted from thirst and were collapsing in the streets of the town and in the gateways; they no longer had any strength.
23 Then all the people, the young men, the women, and the children, gathered around Uzziah and the rulers of the town and cried out with a loud voice, and said before all the elders,
24 "Let God judge between you and us! You have done us a great injury in not making peace with the Assyrians.
25 For now we have no one to help us; God has sold us into their hands, to be strewn before them in thirst and exhaustion.
26 Now summon them and surrender the whole town as booty to the army of Holofernes and to all his forces.
27 For it would be better for us to be captured by them. We shall indeed become slaves, but our lives will be spared, and we shall not witness our little ones dying before our eyes, and our wives and children drawing their last breath.
28 We call to witness against you heaven and earth and our God, the Lord of our ancestors, who punishes us for our sins and the sins of our ancestors; do today the things that we have described!"
29 Then great and general lamentation arose throughout the assembly, and they cried out to the Lord God with a loud voice.
30 But Uzziah said to them, "Courage, my brothers and sisters! Let us hold out for five days more; by that time the Lord our God will turn his mercy to us again, for he will not forsake us utterly.
31 But if these days pass by, and no help comes for us, I will do as you say."
32 Then he dismissed the people to their various posts, and they went up on the walls and towers of their town. The women and children he sent home. In the town they were in great misery.
Chapter 8
1 Now in those days Judith heard about these things: she was the daughter of Merari son of Ox son of Joseph son of Oziel son of Elkiah son of Ananias son of Gideon son of Raphain son of Ahitub son of Elijah son of Hilkiah son of Eliab son of Nathanael son of Salamiel son of Sarasadai son of Israel.
2 Her husband Manasseh, who belonged to her tribe and family, had died during the barley harvest.
3 For as he stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field, he was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in his town Bethulia. So they buried him with his ancestors in the field between Dothan and Balamon.
4 Judith remained as a widow for three years and four months
5 at home where she set up a tent for herself on the roof of her house. She put sackcloth around her waist and dressed in widow's clothing.
6 She fasted all the days of her widowhood, except the day before the sabbath and the sabbath itself, the day before the new moon and the day of the new moon, and the festivals and days of rejoicing of the house of Israel.
7 She was beautiful in appearance, and was very lovely to behold. Her husband Manasseh had left her gold and silver, men and women slaves, livestock, and fields; and she maintained this estate.
8 No one spoke ill of her, for she feared God with great devotion.
Judith's advice to the Elders
9 When Judith heard the harsh words spoken by the people against the ruler, because they were faint for lack of water, and when she heard all that Uzziah said to them, and how he promised them under oath to surrender the town to the Assyrians after five days,
10 she sent her maid, who was in charge of all she possessed, to summon Uzziah and Chabris and Charmis, the elders of her town.
11 They came to her, and she said to them:"Listen to me, rulers of the people of Bethulia! What you have said to the people today is not right; you have even sworn and pronounced this oath between God and you, promising to surrender the town to our enemies unless the Lord turns and helps us within so many days.
12 Who are you to put God to the test today, and to set yourselves up in the place of God in human affairs?
13 You are putting the Lord Almighty to the test, but you will never learn anything!
14 You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought? No, my brothers, do not anger the Lord our God.
15 For if he does not choose to help us within these five days, he has power to protect us within any time he pleases, or even to destroy us in the presence of our enemies.
16 Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God; for God is not like a human being, to be threatened, or like a mere mortal, to be won over by pleading.
17 Therefore, while we wait for his deliverance, let us call upon him to help us, and he will hear our voice, if it pleases him.
18 "For never in our generation, nor in these present days, has there been any tribe or family or people or town of ours that worships gods made with hands, as was done in days gone by.
19 That was why our ancestors were handed over to the sword and to pillage, and so they suffered a great catastrophe before our enemies.
20 But we know no other god but him, and so we hope that he will not disdain us or any of our nation.
21 For if we are captured, all Judea will be captured and our sanctuary will be plundered; and he will make us pay for its desecration with our blood.
22 The slaughter of our kindred and the captivity of the land and the desolation of our inheritance - all this he will bring on our heads among the Gentiles, wherever we serve as slaves; and we shall be an offense and a disgrace in the eyes of those who acquire us.
23 For our slavery will not bring us into favor, but the Lord our God will turn it to dishonor.
24 "Therefore, my brothers, let us set an example for our kindred, for their lives depend upon us, and the sanctuary - both the temple and the altar - rests upon us.
25 In spite of everything let us give thanks to the Lord our God, who is putting us to the test as he did our ancestors.
26 Remember what he did with Abraham, and how he tested Isaac, and what happened to Jacob in Syrian Mesopotamia, while he was tending the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother.
27 For he has not tried us with fire, as he did them, to search their hearts, nor has he taken vengeance on us; but the Lord scourges those who are close to him in order to admonish them."
Uzziah asks her to pray for them
28 Then Uzziah said to her, "All that you have said was spoken out of a true heart, and there is no one who can deny your words.
29 Today is not the first time your wisdom has been shown, but from the beginning of your life all the people have recognized your understanding, for your heart's disposition is right.
30 But the people were so thirsty that they compelled us to do for them what we have promised, and made us take an oath that we cannot break.
31 Now since you are a God-fearing woman, pray for us, so that the Lord may send us rain to fill our cisterns. Then we will no longer feel faint from thirst."
32 Then Judith said to them, "Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all generations of our descendants.
33 Stand at the town gate tonight so that I may go out with my maid; and within the days after which you have promised to surrender the town to our enemies, the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand.
34 Only, do not try to find out what I am doing; for I will not tell you until I have finished what I am about to do."
35 Uzziah and the rulers said to her, "Go in peace, and may the Lord God go before you, to take vengeance on our enemies."
36 So they returned from the tent and went to their posts.
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